301 points! and could have done more

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Dave McLaughlin

Do you think that all teams involved would have agreed to attempt this "challenge" if there were no monetary incentives attached to completing it?

That seems to be the question. I think the answer is yes, but we'll probably never know.

I'll give the detailed account of what went down, so you can decide. Beware that it took me a while to think through the events and recount what happened when, and my memory is not as good as it could be, so there could be some mistakes here.

The #6 blue alliance consisted of the Bulldogs (60), N.E.R.D.S. (1726) (that's us), and the Gila Monsters (3785). We have played with and against the Bulldogs several times over the years, and I have great respect for their ability to win in tough situations, so I was happy to be picked by them. They are friends with the Gila Monsters, as well.

Arizona's regional is held in a high school, the ARENA is in the gym, the pits are in a large hallway not far away. The beginning of the queuing area is between the two. Since we were playing in QF 4, we got to wait in the beginning of the queuing area while the first match was being played. This match had the #1 alliance, the CocoNuts (2846), Falcons (842), and Plasma (2403). We know the Falcons well, and are friends with the other two as well.

I sat in the corner of the stands nearest the door, next to Martin from 842. We worked for a couple weeks on the movie La Vida Robot in New Mexico this past fall, so we know each other. I sat there because I knew we would need to move the robot soon, down the long queuing hallway and I didn't want to be all the way across the gym with my team since I had to leave in a hurry when the match was over. From our seats, we could just see the scoreboard. As the first match ended, I saw the score 260 to 68, and it occurred to me that no qualifying match had come close to meeting Mr. Sanghi's challenge: If both alliances in any match made at least 200 points, he would pay $500 of his own money towards the registration fee for next year's regional for each of the 6 teams each time they did it, up to a total of $15,000 for the weekend. I thought to myself, if there were no defense, we might be able to do it. This was the paradigm shift. Everyone plays as hard as they can to score, it's a full offensive match, and if we do well enough, we can also get a bonus. I didn't have much time to think about all the implications, but I wanted to see if our alliance would want to try to play a match without defense, to see if we could meet the challenge. The money was a small part of the lure...our team is better at fundraising than we are at spending, so we don't really need the money. The challenge was the big thing for me. But I knew the money was a good lure for the other five teams involved.

Our QF match was against Team Caution (1492), Bit Buckets (4183), and Cyborg Mustangs (2647). I first asked the coaches of our alliance members if they were interested, and they agreed after some discussion with other team members. We then asked the coaches of the other alliance. We discussed some conditions, such as no intentional fouls, and playing defense would mean the agreement was off. The offer was for the first match, only. Team Caution declined. I accepted that easily, and wished the other alliance good luck, The atmosphere was very friendly, we get along fine...and I need to mention that my brother and two of my sons mentor the Bit Buckets, although I don't think any of them were there at the time.

We played our first match, it was intense. This was also my first regional as drive coach, my first experience in eliminations "behind the glass". We lost the first match, but it was close. We adjusted our tactics and strategy, and managed to win the next match! Great...we are still in the game. We did it again, and won the quarter final against the third alliance! On to the semi finals.

In the semis, we were up against #7, who had defeated the second alliance. The BoxerBots (1828) are a tough team, the were with Out of Orbit (2449) and the Dragons (2375). All three are great teams, they fought hard but lost the first match by a fair margin. About this time, I realized that we would probably be in the finals against the first alliance, and decided to talk to Fredi and Dave and see if they were interested in playing the first match of the finals without defense. I knew that they could outscore us about two to one, and that they had plenty of defense on their side, as well. I figured we had nothing to lose, and they probably knew they had little to lose also. I also know that Fredi loves to do things differently. And I also know that they are low on funds, they had to scrape to get the money to go to Championships for the past few years.

I asked the two if they would like to play a match without defense, in the hopes of meeting the challenge. I forgot to mention the condition of not intentionally fouling, I just made a qick offer, to see if they were interested. I said I had to confirm if our alliance all wanted to do it, because I didn't know yet. Fredi and Dave both were interested, and went to talk to Plasma about it.

I went back to our alliance, and told them that I had asked the first alliance if they wanted to play no defense, and that they were interested. We went on to play our second semifinal match, which we also won. The Bulldogs said that they would not want to play no defense, as they had to win to get to championships, and they were not going to take any chances. I let the other alliance know, and we played our first finals match, struggling to get only 101 points to their 225. At the end of the match, I turned to the Bulldogs coach and said someting about defense not doing much to help us win that match. I went away for a few minutes, and when I returned, I was told that we were on for "no defense" in the next match.

The alliances made some quick decisions, we were each going to try to stick to our own right side of the field, to stay out of each others way. The match started....blue made both auto shots, Falcons missed both of theirs, Coconuts made theirs. The race was on. We were able to inbound relatively quickly with no interference, but it still took a while to get the ball to the Bulldogs, and get it over the truss. We ran our cycles as fast as we could, but we just could not keep up with the stronger alliance. Plasma was inbounding instantly to Falcons, who shot over the truss to the CocoNuts human player, who handed off to their robot and scored in the high goal. It was very impressive to watch, although it looked like an unstoppable juggernaut, from where we stood. The thing is, they were unstoppable with defense being played on them, as well. We were not handling the ball very well, and the time it took our side to get and shoot the ball really limited the amount of defense we were able to play in the first match. We did end up with 180 points to 301, not enough to meet the challenge, but a respectable score for the sixth alliance, and considerably higher than our score in the first finals match, when Plasma was playing defense on us.


We congratulated the winners, and everyone was in great spirits after the match. We lost, we didn't meet the challenge, but we finally got to play a really exciting, high scoring match against the best alliance there.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by BHS_STopping

ITT: People wanting to be right while bringing others down. How GP.

Yes, wanting to keep the spirit of FIRST, how un-GP.

[falconmaster]

Originally Posted by SciBorg Dave

I just watch the match and then read the post. I think that was a poor lesson learned for $. I do not think the match was something to be proud of.

On the contrary this has been an extremely useful lesson learned and an incredible experience and I bet there are many people reading who are not posting who are pondering what they would do. I am defending my team's decision and trying to clarify why both alliances did what they did because I think it was incredibly bold to do this knowing how they could get criticized in the FIRST community. Obviously this is a very polarizing issue. It is interesting to see how people pass judgement on others. We are truly a social species. We were proud of the match for what is was trying to achieve, no regrets. I stand by my team's and both the alliances decision. No one was hurt, no one was cheated, all parties and the audience were in agreement. For that time and that place it was the thing to do. It probably will not happen at the championships, but I think its great that this happened here in AZ to have this dialog before Championships. I will point out however that at the finals last year in the last matches, it became who could outscore each other game with little or no defense on any robot, especially 610 who had free reign of the field. They basically did what we did without the prearrangement. Yes there was no money involved in their game, but we, unfortunately, can't run away from that no matter how much we say the challenge was not taken up for the money. It was always there the whole tournament and no one went for it. It really was the challenge.

[BHS_STopping]

Originally Posted by dodar

Yes, wanting to keep the spirit of FIRST, how un-GP.

You're going to have to elaborate on this one. All of the teams came together and made this decision themselves. How is that not in the spirit of FIRST? Are you really so bent on trying to bring down last year's International WFA winner and his team? It really seems like you just want so badly for them to admit that they're wrong. What's your goal here?

[dodar]

Originally Posted by BHS_STopping

You're going to have to elaborate on this one. All of the teams came together and made this decision themselves. How is that not in the spirit of FIRST? Are you really so bent on trying to bring down last year's National WFA winner and his team? It really seems like you just want so badly for them to admit that they're wrong. What's your goal here?

If through all these posts you cannot realize how having money alter the play of even 1 match, even if that match is almost surely decided, then I cant further explain anything.

[Abhishek R]

I don't think the issue being debated is really the fact that all 6 teams agreed on it; that part seems fine to me.

The issue as from what I'm reading is why all 6 teams agreed to what they did.

[BHS_STopping]

Originally Posted by dodar

If through all these posts you cannot realize how having money alter the play of even 1 match, even if that match is almost surely decided, then I cant further explain anything.

If I offer you a nice trophy for doing community service on a robotics team, does that seem like a disingenuous incentive?

[Dave McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by falconmaster

That is a great question, since the offer originated from the blue alliance I would have to say that we probably would not done it because the challenge would not have been brought up, but I could be wrong maybe they would have done it anyway.

The point I am trying to make is that if this was the case the outcome of a match would have been altered by opposing alliances agreeing to a subset of rules different from those administered throughout the course of the competition which could reasonably be construed as collusion. If the blue alliance offered to attempt the challenge because they thought that they had no chance to win based on the outcome of the first finals match then they in essence valued the opportunity to complete this challenge more than the opportunity to win the regional. Money aside, the goal while competing should always be to win the match. The integrity of the competition hinges upon it.

If the money was not on the table, why would a team ever consider this challenge to be more important than employing any and every strategy necessary to attempt to win the event, EVEN after losing the first finals match.

[BHS_STopping]

Originally Posted by dodar

[deleted]

I'm just saying that you can't always cry foul when a material incentive exists. There are teams who perform actions (that they normally wouldn't have) for the sake of winning an award or getting a blue banner, so what makes this situation different?

[dodar]

Originally Posted by BHS_STopping

I'm just saying that you can't always cry foul when a material incentive exists. There are teams who perform actions (that they normally wouldn't have) for the sake of winning an award or getting a blue banner, so what makes this situation different?

Was the point of teams competing at the Arizona Regional to win the Blue Banner or to just win the $500? That's the difference.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by BHS_STopping

If I offer you a nice trophy for doing community service on a robotics team, does that seem like a disingenuous incentive?

Do you really not understand the difference between community service and affecting the play of a match?

Let me suggest something here. Has anyone considered the effect of 2 or even 1 robot on an alliance saying "we want to go for that!" and the effect that might have on the 3rd robot? What if they wanted to play defense?

If I were part of FIRST or the local regional planning committee, I would strongly advise Mr. Sanghi not to pull something like that ever again.

[Dave McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by dodar

Was the point of teams competing at the Arizona Regional to win the Blue Banner or to just win the $500? That's the difference.

Most importantly it seems to me after reading this that the teams goals changed from winning the blue banner to completing the challenge once they felt they had no chance to win the event. The introduction of a goal that became more important than winning the match for those teams competing demonstrates the inherent problem with incentives other than winning the match.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Dave McLaughlin

Most importantly it seems to me after reading this that the teams goals changed from winning the blue banner to completing the challenge once they felt they had no chance to win the event. The introduction of a goal that became more important than winning the match for those teams competing demonstrates the inherent problem with incentives other than winning the match.

Exactly, instead of seeing the F1-1 score and looking towards how to beat them the next match, they moved their attention to just going for that 200pt barrier.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Dave McLaughlin

If the money was not on the table, why would a team ever consider this challenge to be more important than employing any and every strategy necessary to attempt to win the event, EVEN after losing the first finals match.

The interesting thing is that there was a higher monetary incentive to win the regional. If you go back thru the thread, you might find a post by a member of team 1492, with a link to the video of the offer. Something like $1000 payment towards registration for Champs for the teams on the winning alliance. I don't really remember.

If you read my post at the top of this page, you'll see that we decided that the no defense strategy was indeed a more viable strategy to win the match, than playing defense.

The monetary offer is what sparked the idea to not play defense. It is not what really made us do it, as far as I can tell.

[BHS_STopping]

Originally Posted by dodar

Was the point of teams competing at the Arizona Regional to win the Blue Banner or to just win the $500? That's the difference.

I don't see any shame in the blue alliance admitting that they had a very slim chance to win, nor do I see any shame with giving thousands of spectators something different to cheer for in a final match. At that point, the crowd wasn't interested in who won or who lost; it was about seeing if Arizona teams, which people have been so fast to discount over the years, were capable of meeting such a difficult challenge. I guarantee that the crowd would have erupted had the blue alliance been able to score just 20 more points during the last match of the entire regional competition. We wouldn't have been cheering because we just watched 6 teams each win $500 towards next year's registration -- we would have been cheering because we, the FIRST community of Arizona, were given a challenge and met it.

I bet you, with a high degree of certainty, that if Steve Sanghi had presented the challenge without the monetary contribution, we would have seen the exact same thing happen.